


But Who Can Name That Face

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Oxford, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A 'masquerade ball'. What a joke. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Who Can Name That Face

A ‘masquerade ball’. What a joke. 

Sherlock was lost for an explanation for why – just once – he had given way to Sebastian’s constant reminders and questions and endless _talking_ and agreed to come to this. 

No, no point in attempting to fool himself: he knew exactly what had come over him. He had wanted the man out of his room in order to attend to an experiment and it had been more than evident that the fastest and most efficient way to do so was to say yes. That was logical enough. Unfortunately, Mycroft had found out by the very next morning – of _course_ , little hope that a small thing like university would change that, and especially Mycroft’s old territory – and Sherlock had found himself in possession of one ball ticket and one black silk mask. 

His first instinct had been to treat it as yet another opportunity to test himself against his brother, in the name of escape. However, this time Mycroft had won, practically before they had started – by the narrowest of margins, naturally. He’d known exactly what to say to trick Sherlock into this. All it had taken, Sherlock was rather ashamed to recall, was the offhand reflection that a masquerade was a perfect place to test one’s powers of observation and deduction. 

No doubt that was true of a _proper_ masquerade. The sort the Holmes family had held on several occasions, where deception seemed the name of the game (and what a game it was). However, what had in fact lain in wait for him, in the quads so terribly hidden behind garish and cheap decorations, was one sort of Hell on Earth: an over-glorified and over-priced party, built around his ‘peers’ (his tutors’ word, not his own) showing off their money and alcohol tolerance, or lack of – where nobody cared beyond ‘buy a mask’. 

Within roughly an hour of entering – as long as it took to survey the entire college and conclude that there was absolutely nothing redeemable about the scenario, and collect the feeble scrapings of even remotely ‘useful’ data – he had situated himself on the wall at the back of one of the quads, with a packet of cigarettes and an unrivalled view across Christchurch Meadows in one direction and the absurd stupidity of his fellow students in the other. He was trapped, that much was certain. No doubt Mycroft had his spies here. Sherlock had sworn to two hours – a stupid number, truly, but the smallest Mycroft would accept, and no doubt enforceable if necessary – and should he leave before then, well, it wouldn’t do to give his brother anything approaching an advantage in their games. Perhaps in a few minutes he would resort to collecting data on drunken students who thought they were in fool-proof disguise. (Little merit, little science, but needs must.) No doubt he would be forced to endure more than a few piercing ‘broken hearts’ at hall for the rest of the week. How tedious. How pointless.

How _boring._

He blew out a cloud of smoke, resting his wrist against his knee and scowling at one such couple already under the impression that a tree made them invisible. Disgusting. 

“Well, aren’ ye jes’ the life o’ the party?” 

He started, almost to the point of losing his balance, before catching himself. How had someone been able to sneak up on him? It must have been the noise – the bad music and the worse singing, and so much talking and shouting. _God_ , he hated this. 

He looked around appraisingly, at the stranger beaming at him. Like Sherlock, he was dressed in black tie, but this man’s looked much the worse for wear. His suit jacket and waistcoat were both hanging open, his shirt half untucked, his hair ruffled, his tie hanging loose (thank God he hadn’t stooped so low as to tie it around his head), and his face had the inane smile of the extremely drunk. 

“Well? Aren’t ye gonna say anythin’?” 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. There was something… 

Then he smirked, turning away dismissively. “You can drop that ridiculous accent. It’s not impressing anyone.” 

“Oi, if ye’re tryin’ te star’ summin – ” 

“You are clearly not from Scotland. Not with _that_ tie and _that_ aftershave. Stop wasting my time.” 

There was a pause, but Sherlock didn’t let himself relax. The man was still standing there, and nothing made him more tense than the _waiting_. Any moment now, he was going to start asking _questions_ – 

“Is this acceptable?” 

Sherlock froze as the stranger’s voice slipped seamlessly into a perfect imitation of his own public-school tones. On twisting around, he discovered that not only the voice but the entire performance had transformed into any rugby ‘lad’ (fast becoming the bane of Sherlock’s existence): posh enough and rich enough to drink to the point of unconsciousness in his own vomit without any fear of consequence – or price, for that matter. 

Except there was something in the eyes. (Sherlock’s mother had always been adamant that one should always try to see the eyes.) The mask hid most of his face – some concoction of red and gold, yet devised in such a manner that it seemed far less garish than the odd adventurous monstrosity lurking around here, as if this man really had heard of Venice – but the eyes remained, glinting oddly. They didn’t look bored, or drunk. More…amused. 

“Better than your Scottish,” Sherlock offered – still keeping his distance, still not looking away. 

“Why thank you,” his companion replied smoothly, shifting his body language subtly so that it mirrored Sherlock’s. Any trace of drunkenness had slipped smoothly away. “Something a bit more to your liking?” 

It was pointless to hide his smile – the real ones were so very rare. Besides, given the intolerably and indescribably tedious time already lost, finally things seemed to be getting interesting. “Is that how you ‘pick people up’?” He wondered if the disdain within those words was a little too obvious. “You change yourself into them?” 

“Sometimes.” An answering smirk under the mask, and with what could easily have been described as a ‘thrill’ Sherlock realised that it looked very familiar indeed. 

(But then, looks weren’t everything here.)

“So.” The man nodded his head towards Sherlock’s jacket as he adjusted his suit: straightening his tie, re-tucking his shirt, buttoning up his waistcoat (but not, Sherlock noted, his jacket), and finishing by flicking off a speck of something Sherlock couldn’t see at that distance. “Cigarette?” 

Sherlock elegantly raised an eyebrow. “Rather presumptuous.” 

“What can I say? Usually works for me.” 

“Hm.” Sherlock narrowed his eyes, yet alarmingly nevertheless found himself reaching into his pocket to retrieve the packet. Hastily hiding the slip-up, he pointedly took one for himself and then moved to replace them. 

“Oh, darling, did Mummy and Daddy never teach you any manners?” 

He could actually feel his right eye twitching. “Are strangers usually ‘darling’, or am I just very lucky tonight?” When the man offered no comment, and certainly not a shred of repentance, he added, with a pointed glare he had been practising for years, “I don’t see the point in them.” Unusually – it was starting to dawn on Sherlock that ‘usually’ no longer applied, finally, something _interesting_ – the man seemed unmoved by either the look or the comment. 

“I know exactly what you mean, _darling_ ,” he said, the emphasis somehow creating suggestion, as he hopped up to sit next to him. With a quick movement he reached out and plucked the packet from Sherlock’s fingers, extracting a cigarette and then leaning over unnecessarily close to slide it back into Sherlock’s inside pocket, smiling right in Sherlock’s face as if daring him to move away. Technically it was precisely the sort of situation Sherlock hated: assumed intimacy and almost definite flirtation.

And yet.

And yet he was just…letting it happen. 

With a flourish – and without breaking their locked gaze for an instant – the man produced a lighter from his own pocket. “Sharing is caring.” He held the flame out, daring, and Sherlock was surprised again to find himself coaxed into leaning closer. 

It was only the moment afterwards that he recalled his own box of matches. 

As he recoiled – feeling the hot burn of sudden anger as the man only grinned around his own cigarette, the lighter’s flame flashing off golden webs and dark eyes – it dawned on him just how quickly he was losing control, faced with something he didn’t understand. And he hated not understanding anything. 

“Don’t I get a name?” he demanded – certainly not on the defensive.

“Certainly!” The man put a finger to his lips, frowning in exaggerated thought. “I was fine with ‘darling’,” he paused to observe Sherlock’s reaction (presumably to mock), “but if you _like_ , we can give you a _proper_ name. What do you think of Thomas? Or William?” 

Sherlock only looked at him, which apparently provoked an exaggerated shudder. “Oh, I can see I’ve offended you. No doubt you’d like something _grander_ , like Nathaniel, or _Zachariah_. Nothing but subtlety from you.” 

Despite the over-the-top, theatrical style of behaviour that should have made even him blush, Sherlock actually found himself smiling – _properly_ , even, fascinated and delighted and fierce and a far cry from the imitation he’d perfected. “I’d hate to disappoint.” Mimicking the performance, allowing it to come (too) naturally, he ran his eyes up and down his new companion, tilting his head appraisingly. “Obviously you need something plain. Simple. Easy to hide.” 

“From anyone else, I’d think you were insulting me.” His voice sounded light, even teasing, but the tension was clear in his shoulders – not to mention the briefest slip of an accent with more than a tint of Irish about it. 

“John,” Sherlock mused, not commenting, only storing it away. “Or Jim.” 

“Wow, John or _Jim_. You’re just _full_ of ideas, aren’t you, pet?” 

It wasn’t clear whether it was the word itself or the outstretched hand, a moment away from patting him on the cheek like some sort of cat, that made him recoil, smile vanishing into a snarl. “Don’t _ever_ call me that.” 

The sheer sudden force of his anger surprised him, yet the stranger simply sat back, amused smile unaltered. “Well, if you won’t give me anything else, it’s that or ‘darling’.” 

He glanced away, and the comeback at the tip of Sherlock’s tongue disappeared when he found himself unexpectedly distracted by the glint and flash of the quad’s lights as the gold and glitter of the mask turned towards them. And for all the heat of the anger, it simply bled away with the reminder of the mystery at the heart of this. 

Contrary to whatever Mycroft or Sebastian might have believed, Sherlock was not oblivious to this sort of thing – just dismissive. The chance was there, hanging in the silence of the moment. One of several that had been scattered throughout the past few minutes, in fact. 

A brief thought, alien but all of a sudden intriguing: _what if?_

He could invite this man back to his room. Standard practice for a ball, after all, if not for him. One risk, and he could find out what was under that mask; satisfy that illicit thrill that squirmed in his stomach at the very imagining – like creeping downstairs on Christmas morning to deduce the contents of every present. 

But instead, he said, “Not if you won’t give _me_ anything.” 

“Oh, let’s go with Jim, if you want to put a false name to a face you can’t see. It’s as appropriate as anything else.” 

Sherlock was familiar with people avoiding the subject; he was also familiar with ignoring such wishes. “You’re not staying for long anyway,” he announced, and Jim looked at him sharply, a little bit more of the act falling away with the sudden light in his eyes (Sherlock might have fancied ‘fear’, but he rather suspected something more dangerous). “I doubt you even bothered purchasing a ticket. Judging by your shoes, you came through the Meadows.” 

“There’s mud in your quads too.” 

“Not _that_ kind of mud.” Sherlock took a drag on his cigarette and rested his head on his hand, staring intently at this puzzle. Emotions were hardly what he (or anyone) would call his area of expertise, but he was fairly certain there was at least a slight hint of being impressed under the sudden wariness. More than that: when he overlaid the expression on an image of himself, compare and contrast, he found that a more appropriate word was _intrigued_. 

“You’re only here for a moment, and it requires you blending in with _them_.” He waved his hand dismissively at a well-attended makeshift bar on the other side of the quad, attendees huddled together in search of whatever they found at the bottom of the glass. “Hence your ridiculous appearance.” 

No acknowledgement, naturally, yet Sherlock could read more than enough into the harsh exhale of smoke. Not to mention yet more misdirection: “And _you’re_ here because somebody convinced you that it’d be _interesting_ – someone who calls you a friend because he calls everybody that, and he likes winding you up but didn’t want anybody to miss this. I’ll bet you only said yes to humour him. Then somebody cut off your escape routes.” Sherlock answered with a sneer of annoyance. 

Jim leaned in closer, a soft smile – a trickster’s smile, if Sherlock knew the type – playing across his lips. “You thought a masquerade would be interesting because you were expecting people to actually _try_.” 

“I’m used to having to lower my expectations.” 

“Or maybe you should just _change_ them.” Pause to inhale, the filter glowing in the darkness. “Tell me, darling – ” he only smirked in response to Sherlock’s scowl “ – did you ever consider playing someone else?” 

“You mean like you.” 

Jim shrugged. “Of _course_ I’m playing somebody else. It’s a _masquerade_. I’m surprised you’re not doing it.” 

“I’m not sneaking into a glorified party for something more than some free drinks.” 

“Well, obviously. Point still stands. You paid _money_ for this,” Jim punctuated the point with a stab of his cigarette, “and while your family’s lovely gift of a mask says that doesn’t that concerns you, you’re also not someone who wastes his time on this lot.” 

Despite Mycroft (and his entire family) – indeed, precisely because of that – Sherlock instinctively disliked anyone riposting with his own skills, and especially strangers. Not that it happened very often. “You think you know a lot about me.” 

“And you know I’m not making any of it up. I can tell things like that. Just like you.” 

_Like me._

It was a terrifying thought. 

And amazing. 

It was too much, really, so Sherlock did what several therapists had commented was his speciality and avoided it altogether. “Why would I do what _they_ want?” 

The man made a sound of mingled disgust and exasperation that was so familiar that Sherlock knew it wasn’t faked. Empathy was not something he was at all used to, so the casual recognition left him a little stunned – stunned enough just to listen to what came next. “It’s not about _them_ , silly, it’s about _you_. You’re a smart boy. You know everybody’s pretending anyway. 

“We’re better than _them_ though. We can control who we’re pretending to be.” A devil’s grin. What else? “Why not have a little _fun_ with that?” 

_We._ From anybody else it would have been disgustingly presumptuous. Here though? It just sounded _right_. 

Not a single indication in his voice though – always good to know when your skills would hold up. “Most of the people here know me.” 

“Do they?” Jim screwed up his face in a pantomime of disbelief. “You don’t seem like somebody anybody here _knows_. Maybe by reputation, but all you have to do is act that little bit differently and they’ll eat it up.” A whisper in the air, horribly intimate, horribly inviting. “ _Live_ a little, darling.” 

Sherlock didn’t respond, nor did he flinch away. He allowed himself to blink, and muttered, “I told you to stop calling me that.” Only the moment after it left his lips did he regret it for the petulant sentence it was.

“So _serious_.” Sherlock sincerely hoped that the pout was part of the performance. As was the distinct disregard for personal space “I can just _smell_ the intimacy issues. I only wish we had more time.” 

“But you have more important things to do than stay here. I don’t blame you.” 

“Don’t pout, darling. One cigarette’s all we get. Shame, really.” He leant in close – far too close for Sherlock not to flinch (at last) and feel grateful for the masks separating them. “I’d _love_ to get to know you better, mystery man.” 

For a moment, Sherlock wondered if Jim was going to kiss him. 

For a moment, Sherlock wondered if he wanted him to.

And then it passed, Jim drawing back just as suddenly, turning and staring intently across the quad, focusing not on the students but on the walls – or, more specifically, on the windows. No doubt he’d been reminded of why he was really there. 

Staring at his profile, Sherlock felt disappointed more than anything, and not in the same way as ever since he had reached Oxford; not in the same way he’d been disappointed his entire life. This wasn’t an acknowledgement of the sheer futility of hoping for somebody to _understand_ ; this wasn’t failure, or being let down again and again; this wasn’t being ground down by the dullness of it all. In that, he felt exhilarated: not even certain how long the conversation had taken so far, the twin cigarettes his only indicator. The time had simply bled away, in a way Sherlock usually experienced purely in his own mind – not that he wasn’t there, thinking away, of course, but whoever this man really was, he was there too. 

While there was something undeniably unsettling about ‘Jim’, it was pulling him in closer every minute. Well, less like being pulled, and more like falling.

“Let me guess.” The words cut through the strangeness of his own thoughts, a sign that Jim’s attention was back, and as invasive as ever. “You’re good at putting on the faces that get you what you want, but somebody – that _family_ of yours – ” he practically spat out the word, as if the taste made him ill “ – some oh-so-helpful mother or brother told you that was wrong. Probably even got you _help_.” 

Sherlock felt his hand clench into a fist against the wall and tried to focus on the small points of pain where stones caught against his skin. “Quite an assumption.” 

“Oh, darling, I don’t _assume_ , any more than you do.” A magician’s flourish – no doubt meant to play up the deduction. It really was astounding how much ridiculousness such an otherwise fascinating man proved capable of. “I’ll bet that help said something fancy – sociopathy?” Sherlock fancied he might have hidden the reaction, but the glimmer in Jim’s eyes disabused him of the notion. (Later, he would realise he’d let that ‘darling’ pass by.) “Good old sociopaths. Always getting what we want by playing people.” 

A look, piercing, trying to see deeper than Sherlock ever wanted. “You think that’s wrong?” 

Sherlock knew he should say yes. Should follow what that doctor of his mother’s had said. Mycroft had said she was right, and Sherlock had always used to believe his brother on these matters. 

He knew what he should do, and instead he replied, “They say it is.” 

“You don’t agree?” 

“…No.” It felt thrilling; liberating. 

“ _Good_.” Jim breathed the word out with the smoke, the mouth underneath the mask stretched into a wide Cheshire smile, teeth and all. “I know you want to do what you’re told” Sherlock could feel his snarl, didn’t try to hide it, “but you do know where you are?” Jim gestured expansively, eyes fixed on Sherlock’s. “No parents here. No _brothers_.” Briefly Sherlock wondered how he had known, before dismissing it. After all, how did he always know? Because it was obvious. 

Jim lowered his voice, forcing Sherlock to focus on his words. “ _Be yourself_ , darling. Go and see what’s really out there.” 

They were so close now. So intimate. There was the part of Sherlock that always wanted to run, screaming at him, the same way there was the mind that could never stop working, calculating, thinking on and on; except somehow, impossibly, both of them were slowly fading away.

There was something else there. Something Sherlock hadn’t truly felt for years, beyond the sense of something stalking behind the bars of the cage. Something he’d always known was there.

Jim practically breathed the last words: “I can’t wait to see what you become.” 

_Neither can I._

Something strange was happening to the world: Jim was almost painfully focused, painfully real, beyond even Sherlock’s normal settings, the colours of the mask and the white of his teeth searing themselves into his memory, even as their surroundings blurred into an indistinct background. The same thing was happening inside his head, as all those frantic thoughts and the sheer bone-breaking boredom that overlay them dulled into the background. It was like thinking clearly for the very first time.

It would be so easy, he realised. So easy to do something. 

He was used to faking emotions. This was entirely new. 

He wanted.

He wanted more than he could think of.

He couldn’t think straight at all, and he was falling, and he didn’t know what would happen when he hit the ground, or if he ever would. All he knew was that he was undeniably and rapidly losing control.

Jim moved closer.

 _Break the moment._

With a small gasp, Sherlock wrenched his eyes away; forced himself to look anywhere but back at Jim. He settled for focusing on his watch. “I don’t suppose you’re permitted company on this endeavour of yours?” he asked lightly. 

When he sneaked a cautious glance, Jim looked more than a little startled – gratifying, a small victory – followed by a very brief and unexpected flash of frustration, before settling into an expression of incredulity. “Lighten up, darling. You don’t have to talk like a nineteenth century novel all the time. Much as I love the sound of your voice around those syllables.” He seemed to consider something. “And no. No ‘company’. Sorry, darling, you’ll just have to wait for our paths to cross again.” 

“Clichéd.” Disappointing. 

Jim looked at him a little longer, apparently on the edge of saying something further. However, Sherlock resolutely refused to meet his gaze again, as if the slightest glance would pull him in again. Eventually – finally – Jim let out an overdramatic sigh, stubbed his cigarette out on the stone wall and flicked it away into the night, to be discovered tomorrow by whatever poor sod had to tidy up after this. 

“Well, I guess this is goodbye. Toodle-oo.” 

That piece of insanity at least broke Sherlock’s concentration, forcing him to stare at ‘Jim’ - the stranger. Fortunately it was too late to be taken advantage of, the man hopping down off the wall and taking the first steps away. Sherlock felt in his breast pocket for another cigarette – he needed it. 

“Oh, and darling?” 

Despite what he’d said, Sherlock looked up expectantly. Jim had paused to look back over his shoulder, weight on his hip in a strangely effeminate manner. “Disguises. They help people like us get what we want in this world. Find someone here who has no idea who you are, and see what you can get. 

“I guarantee you’ll like it.” 

Then, with a last parting suggestive smirk and a wink, he turned and sauntered away, until he vanished into the crowd the other side of the quad. 

Sherlock stared after him, wondering what would happen if he followed anyway. Then he heard footsteps approach and a polite cough from beside him. “Hey, he your boyfriend?” 

He scowled, opened his mouth to correct yet another person’s grammar, not to mention such an aggravating assumption…and then stopped himself. It hardly took any effort to summon up the fake smile he had been using on school teachers for years, as well as the tutors who hadn’t already learnt their lesson: the one that peculiarly seemed to make people surprisingly compliant. The same one, he suspected, that Jim had used more than once on him. 

“Not at all,” he replied. Then, on a whim, he tried pitching his voice at that strange seductive level he’d definitely detected during the conversation. “Why? Are you interested?” 

It was painful. It was utterly clichéd. And, judging by the answering tipsy smile, it was perfect. 

People could be so _dull_. 

What a joke.


End file.
